NBA may rebuild entire schedule from scratch once lockout ends

More N.B.A. games will be canceled soon, perhaps today or tomorrow or next week. The timing hardly matters anymore. The schedule, at least as it was presented in July, is already worthless.

Two weeks of games have been canceled. The rest of November’s games will be wiped out soon. And at least two arenas, in Los Angeles and Chicago, have reassigned some December dates for other events, with the N.B.A.’s blessing.

To be clear, the league is not secretly canceling the December schedule — the Los Angeles Lakers and the Chicago Bulls were assured of alternate nights to replace those they surrendered — but the decision to release those arena dates underscores the obsolescence of the published schedule.

Lead negotiators for the N.B.A. and the players union will meet again Wednesday, just six days after talks collapsed, in another attempt to end the lockout, according to a person briefed on the talks.

Whenever the lockout is resolved, the N.B.A. will build a new schedule from scratch, using all arena dates that are still reserved, according to people who are aware of the league’s plans. N.B.A. officials declined to discuss the issue Tuesday.

Thus, the decision to formally announce cancellations is an academic exercise, and perhaps a bit of political theater. The announcements are a warning shot to the league’s 430-plus players, a reminder that they are losing hundreds of millions of dollars.